Review – The Silver Wind

Posted November 27, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of The Silver Wind by Nina AllanThe Silver Wind, Nina Allan

I didn’t enjoy The Silver Wind as much as the other novella by Allan that I’ve read, Spin, but then I kind of expected that — Spin is a take on the story of Arachne, after all, and I really enjoy well-done retellings. The Silver Wind is a bit more of a mystery; sort of a time travel/alternate realities story, I guess. It’s perhaps best experienced for yourself, to see what you make of the plot; it’s well-written, though, and despite the similarities between the stories that make up the narrative, each brings something different as well.

I didn’t love it, and I don’t think it was as finely done as Spin, but it was enjoyable and I’m definitely still curious to read more of Allan’s work.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – The Great Influenza

Posted November 26, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Cover of The Great Influenza by John M. BarryThe Great Influenza, John M. Barry

Whew. The Great Influenza is a heck of a read: there’s a lot of information, and it takes quite a while to get to the actual point of the epidemic, because first it covers certain aspects of medical history. As with so many books like this, in places it becomes a sort of biography of the greats who were involved — it’s going to be interesting to see pop-science deal with the increasingly team-based approach to science, without central characters to pin the narrative on. In many ways, this is more history than science, though it does go into the discovery of the actual cause of influenza, the (lack of) treatments available then and now, the effects it has on the human body, etc. Still, it’s also very much about public health policy and medical practice: it is not just “oooh cool a deadly pathogen”.

Which, if you’re scoffing and thinking that flu isn’t a deadly pathogen, do think again. Even seasonal flu can kill those who are weakened in some way, or unlucky, and the 1918 flu killed from 50 to 100 million people in the years the pandemic ran through (about 1918-1920, to the best of my understanding). It’s difficult to predict how flu will mutate, because it does so all the time, and there are various different strains active in the population at different times. It’s also present in other host species, meaning we can cross-infect our livestock and pick up infections from them.

Flu is a problem, and it was a huge problem back in 1918 without so much commercial flight and recreational travel. The way it swept the globe then is nothing to what it could do now if we’re complacent. If you’re blasé about the potential of a flu pandemic like H1N1, I recommend this to change your mind.

There’s a lot of gory detail here about how the 1918 flu killed, alongside the more sterile descriptions of lab experiments and the dry series of events, and the nitty-gritty of how the influenza virus invades a host cell. It’s not exactly a thrilling read unless you find the topic truly fascinating (I do), but there is a lot here of interest.

Rating: 5/5

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Review – Provenance

Posted November 25, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Cover of Provenance by Ann LeckieProvenance, Ann Leckie

Provenance is not Ancillary Provenance, for sure. The main character is very different from Breq — human, for one thing, and rather less capable, for another. She’s immature and she doesn’t yet know herself, her own capabilities or her own strength. I can sort of understand some reviews who found her a bit of a wet blanket, especially if you know Breq already. But I enjoyed the, well, more human character, in this context. Admittedly, though, Ingray is not my favourite thing about this novel. That would be Garal, by far, and Tic in second place.

But really, what I enjoyed was the societies built up for the story to take place in: the fact that children aren’t gendered, but choose their permanent name and declare their gender as young adults, once they feel comfortable and sure. I enjoyed the handling of that, the care people gave to getting the right pronouns and respecting people’s choice — and the odd moment where someone changes their name as an adult and most people ignore eir preference, which gets called out by the narrative because the people who matter do respect it and just… As a queer person, all this acceptance just goes straight to my heart, and makes me feel like Leckie knows she’s writing for an audience that includes me and the people I know.

For that reason, I feel really weird about the reviews which complain about the “made-up” pronouns (they’re not made-up, they’re in use in the queer community already) or the lesbian relationship and say there’s no “point” in the relationship between Ingray and Teucris, or in Garal being a neman (gender neutral). I think the point is just that these are relationships that happen, identities people already claim, and the way we do things now in the mainstream isn’t the only way to do things. The point is, there are and can be worlds where everyone belongs.

But I don’t think it’s Leckie’s intention to use the story to make a point: the characters’ identities aren’t important to the overall shape of the plot. Perhaps part of the point is just you’re not in Kansas anymore.

The story itself was fun, though not as strong as the Ancillary books. To me this was more about the characters and the world, and I enjoyed it that way. If you want to see the Radch toppling, though, you’ll be disappointed. Though set in the same world, it has little to do with the Radch and is not directly related to the events set off by Breq. Still, Ancillary Sword should probably have clued you into that aspect of Leckie’s interests, focused mostly on the local events and how they affect characters we’ve come to know and love.

I can see why people won’t love this, especially if they’re looking for hard SF.

Rating: 4/5

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Stacking the Shelves

Posted November 25, 2017 by Nicky in General / 16 Comments

Good morning, folks! As I write this, I’m about to take the little mister to the vet for what might be a fungal infection, so you get an adorable picture of him with my ereader — which he somehow turned on while I was out of the room…

Photo of Breakfast, a brown bunny, apparently looking at a page of text on an ereader.
“Yes? You are disturbing my reading.”

Update: it is not a fungal infection. He’s just an idiot.

New books

Cover of Jackalope Wives and Other Stories by T. Kingfisher Cover of Clockwork Boys by T. Kingfisher

Got these through being a patron of Ursula Vernon’s on Patreon! Woo.

Read this week

Cover of The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams Cover of The Stars Are Legion by Kameron Hurley Cover of Locust by Jeffrey Lockwood

Cover of Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner Cover of Horns of Ruin by Tim Akers Cover of Imagining Head-Smashed-In by Jack Brink

Four stars: The Dragonbone Chair, Swordspoint.
Three stars: The Stars are Legion, Locust, The Horns of Ruin, Imagining Head-Smashed-In.

Reviews posted this week

–The Hanging Tree, by Ben Aaronovitch. A worthy and exciting entry to the series, but oh man, I want the Faceless Man plot to wrap up. It’s not that it isn’t awesome, but I’m worried about it getting stretched too thin. 4/5 stars
–Trouble and Her Friends, by Melissa Scott. Classic cyberpunk with a lot of queer people. It’s slow-paced, but that works for it. 4/5 stars
–Spin, by Nina Allan. A fresh, if not surprising, retelling of a certain myth I enjoyed a lot. 4/5 stars
–The Rabbit Back Literature Society, by Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen. Male-gazey and unfocused. 2/5 stars
–The Other Log of Phileas Fogg, by Philip Jose Farmer. An interesting reworking of the original story, perhaps best enjoyed if you’re familiar with Verne’s work. 3/5 stars
–The Uses of Enchantment, by Bruno Bettelheim. Decidedly outdated and based on somewhat ridiculous Freudian concepts, but surprisingly enjoyable to read. 2/5 stars
–Friday’s Child, by Georgette Heyer. A fun romance, as you’d expect, and I got rather caught up in what would happen even though really, you know the happy ending is inevitable. 4/5 stars

Other posts

–Top Ten Tuesday: Books I’m Thankful For. What it says on the tin.
–WWW Wednesday. The latest and greatest on my currently-reading pile.

How’s everyone doing? Leave me a comment and don’t forget to link your STS post or weekend wrapup; I always visit back as soon as I can!

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Review – Friday’s Child

Posted November 24, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Friday's Child by Georgette HeyerFriday’s Child, Georgette Heyer

If you’ve read a couple of Heyer’s books, you know what to expect. You recognise the character types as they appear — the charmingly innocent heroine, the dishonourable but charming villain, the various prototypes for her heroes… Friday’s Child is of the “marriage of convenience” school, in which Lord Sheringham marries a childhood friend, Hero, more or less on a whim to spite his family. She’s loved him all along, of course, while he is monumentally unaware of having any feelings towards any woman, and certainly doesn’t expect to love his wife (though being a noble Heyer male, he will of course do his duty toward her).

As ever, it’s the detail and Heyer’s wit that carry a story that could be formulaic. I both laughed and cried at Friday’s Child, I’ll confess, sometimes at more or less the same scene. Sherry’s friends and their loyalty to him and to Hero are both funny and endearing, pretty much all the time; there’s something very pathetic about Hero’s adoration of Sherry, and the way he treats her (being angry with her for behaving exactly as he’s told her is right), which is funny in some scenes and just terribly sad in others. I forget which friend of mine has noted that Heyer is one of the few writers who can make a rather silly character one you sympathise with and root for, when you wouldn’t ordinarily be able to stand them at all. This is definitely true with pretty much all the characters here.

Ultimately, it’s not a deep novel of great philosophical worth, and it’s not the best of Heyer’s work in terms of originality or flair either. But it’s fun and it made me happy.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – The Uses of Enchantment

Posted November 23, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Cover of The Uses of Enchantment by Bruno BettelheimThe Uses of Enchantment, Bruno Bettelheim

In terms of the psychoanalysis here, which is heavily based on Freud’s work, it sounds like a lot of rubbish to me. And if you know Bettelheim’s work from his work on autism, you’re not entirely safe from that here — he only mentions it once or twice, but it’s still jarringly wrong. Still, some of his analyses of the texts on a literary level do make sense, and his suggestions of how some people might apply their own lives in understanding and interpreting them are fascinating. As a literary work, The Uses of Enchantment is a bit of a classic, and if you’re a first year English Lit student wondering why Red Riding Hood’s signature colour signifies her coming to sexual maturity, well, it’s got you covered.

Reading it now, eh. I can appreciate some of the stories he tells about the way people relate to stories, even if the psychoanalysis behind it is laughable at times. (Warning: I was raised by a psychiatrist. I haven’t read Freud for myself, just absorbed a healthy disdain through my mother and what I encountered as a lit student.) Some of his comments on why fairytales endure while modern morality stories don’t work, too. But overall… shrug?

Rating: 2/5

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Review – The Other Log of Phileas Fogg

Posted November 22, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of The Other Log of Phileas Fogg by Philip Jose FarmerThe Other Log of Phileas Fogg, Philip Jose Farmer

Another book I got from Bastian’s Book Reviews! Yep, there really was a whole suitcase full.

So I think this is the first time I’ve actually read Philip Jose Farmer’s work, despite being generally aware of it, particularly the Riverworld books. This is perhaps not the best introduction, because it’s Farmer playing with someone else’s toys, and he’s somewhat reliant on the source material: in this case, Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days. It takes that story and then ‘reveals’ an underlying story, in which Fogg is part of a long-running struggle between two alien races who are hiding among humans.

It’s a fun idea, and perhaps more fun when you’ve read Verne’s work and can see all the little tweaks and the uses Farmer makes of the source material. I have read Verne, but not that recently; I’m not sure if reading it more recently might’ve helped in appreciating some of the fun Farmer got up to.

At any rate, I found by the end that it’s mostly fun as an idea, and the actual execution is better the further Farmer strays from the frame narrative of Verne’s book. I enjoyed this version of the detective, Fix, for example — his internal thoughts and his ultimately divided loyalties. But parts which just reprise Verne are not exactly gripping.

Rating: 3/5

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WWW Wednesday

Posted November 22, 2017 by Nicky in General / 4 Comments

The three ‘W’s are what are you reading now, what have you recently finished reading, and what are you going to read next, and you can find this week’s post at the host’s blog here if you want to check out other posts.

What are you currently reading?

Cover of Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline CareyI’m most actively reading Kushiel’s Dart at the moment. I’m surprised how long it’s taking me! I’m sure I remember completely devouring the books, but it’s not really happening with this reread. Maybe because I’m a liiiittle too familiar with what’s coming?

Which, yeah. Boo hiss Melisande.

What have you recently finished reading?

Cover of Swordspoint by Ellen KushnerI just reread Swordspoint, by Ellen Kushner, for a readalong. I enjoyed it more than I did the first time I read it, actually; I felt like I understood the characters and especially the politics a lot better. Am I growing up, a better reader now, or did I just happen to pick it up at the wrong time for my brain before?

Anyway, lots of fun.

What will you read next?

Cover of Dark Sky by Mike BrooksI think the next target on my list is Dark Sky, by Mike Brooks, or Raven Stratagem. A friend picked up Ninefox Gambit a couple of days ago and loved it, so that’s motivation for me. I’m really narrowing down my currently reading list, hurrah.

Buut in the meantime I might read some non-fiction.

What are you reading?

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Top Ten Tuesday

Posted November 21, 2017 by Nicky in General / 11 Comments

It’s been a while since I participated in Top Ten Tuesday, but I always planned to do so again if any of the themes caught my attention and this one did. I’m not American, so Thanksgiving as a holiday isn’t my thing, but there’s always space for thanksgiving as far as I can see. Without further ado, here are the books I’m grateful for.

 The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper Cover of The Summer Tree by Guy Gavriel Kay Cover of Tales of Brave Adventure by Enid Blyton Cover of Cat and Mouse and the dinosaurs

  1. The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison. I bet everyone could’ve predicted this one would make my list. It’s just a piece of hope and goodness in a world all too full of grimdark fiction and grimdark politics. It makes me happy, and it’s so clever too with the use of language and worldbuilding.
  2. The Dark is Rising, by Susan Cooper. I think I’ve actually finally got to the point where I know these books too well to read them again any time soon, but for the joy they’ve inspired, the bookish conversations, the gifts they’ve enabled me to give, and my fascination with Old English (from the simple line “liht mec heht gewyrcan”, inscribed on one of the Six Signs)… so many reasons to give thanks.
  3. The Summer Tree, by Guy Gavriel Kay. Not only do I love this book and the rest of the trilogy, but everything by Guy Gavriel Kay I’ve read since. The friend who gave me it hasn’t spoken to me in years, but his influence lingers in my love of Guy Gavriel Kay and Firefly.
  4. Tales of Bold Adventure, by Enid Blyton. I know, I know, Enid Blyton. But I inherited two copies of this, both obviously well-read — one from my mum, and one from my dad! Reading about Robin Hood and King Arthur was totally formative for me, as the course of my first degree demonstrated.
  5. Cat and Mouse and the Dinosaurs, by Graham Round and Ray Gibson. Without these books, I wouldn’t be a reader. I was refusing to learn to read, until my mother brought these into my life…
  6. Spillover, by David Quammen. For igniting my curiosity about infectious diseases at least as much as it scared me, all the thanks in the world. I probably wouldn’t be so fascinated by microbiology now if it weren’t for this book.
  7. Tutankhamen, by Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt. As a kid, this was my gateway to wonder — an exhaustive description of everything found in Tutankhamen’s tomb. This too was formative for me.
  8. Century Rain, by Alastair Reynolds. I rather enjoyed it, but this one I’m thankful to for another reason: it got my sister interested in reading again after years of disinterest. She sat on my floor for hours on end, captivated, when I first lent her a copy. Now she might not be quite as voracious a reader as me, but she’s pretty darn voracious, and Century Rain was the gateway.
  9. A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula Le Guin. This book has been a source of enchantment for years and years, and my understanding and interpretation of it has grown with me. If I haven’t written up how I relate to Ged’s journey now as someone who suffers with anxiety, I really should.
  10. The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien. For simple hours of enjoyment alone, this book deserves thanks. But also for a really fascinating semester of my Master’s degree, studying it, and for time spent listening to the radioplay with my grandma and my sister, and all the discussions and thinky thoughts it opens the door to.

Cover of Spillover by David Quamnem Cover of Tutankhamen by Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt Cover of Century Rain by Alastair Reynolds Cover of A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin Cover of The Fellowship of the Ring by Tolkien

And that’s it for the list, though honestly all books get my earnest thanks for giving me another, safer world to live in at times.

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Review – The Rabbit Back Literature Society

Posted November 21, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Cover of The Rabbit Back Literature SocietyThe Rabbit Back Literature Society, Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen, trans. Lola Rogers

There’s some interesting elements to this book: the mysterious book viruses, which changes the plots and corrupts the narratives of various books in the Rabbit Back library; the disappearance of Laura White; the mystery of the original tenth member of the society. But mostly it felt unfocused, because there’s a lot going on: the society, the game they play, their pasts, the disappearance, the main character’s experiences with her family…

And honestly, the more I read, the more I felt like I was reading the fantasies of your stereotypical dirty old man. I felt like he undressed all the characters in his mind, in more ways than one, and took delight in displaying that to the reader. It felt prurient, and I was grossed out by some of the revelations. Also, I don’t think people honestly walk around being so conscious of their own nicely shaped lips in the way that his main character does.

The resolutions to the mysteries — the ones we actually get, since there isn’t a resolution to Laura White’s disappearance, for instance — are kind of anti-climatic. I did keep reading, because I wanted to know how it would all come together, but… I kind of regret bothering. It just never comes to anything. There’s some clever writing and some intriguing ideas, but it’s all surface.

Rating: 2/5

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